The apostasy of me. Or not.
Oct. 10th, 2006 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
constanceGeorge W. Bush was in my town today, and my mind is on politics tonight.
I won't even start talking about how quickly he can make the bile rise in my throat (it's practically a Pavlovian response by now, I would think), or how his shell-game politics leave me feeling as though my intelligence has been insulted almost beyond bearing every time he opens his goddamned mouth and at the same time questioning the intelligence of all the people who lap up every word he says the way my dog licks up cat puke if he gets to it before I can. How it's taken years of... Nope, not going to talk about it any more.
Instead, I'm going to talk about a conversation I had with my father when I was in college. I was being probably unbearable and sanctimoniously liberal about something or other, and he informed me that he'd been a liberal once too, but that time and a family and a mortgage had changed his mind. That I would change my mind, too, once I entered the real world and had adult responsibilities to face.
And tonight it's nearly twenty years down the road, and undoubtedly my father would claim that I'm maintaining an unhealthy grip on my Neverlandish talent for avoidance and idealization. But the rest of the world thinks I'm toeing the line pretty well, I thank you. I have adult responsibilities now. No marriage, nor is there likely to be one, but I have a house and a car. Pets. I pay my bills on time, all of them. I'm middle-class! I go to work and pay my taxes and contribute to my 401(k) account! Hey, I even know how to punctuate 401(k)!
But I'm still a liberal. I don't think my affiliations are going to change, either. I don't feel as though I'm closing myself off from the beliefs I once held. They've become tempered by practicality, sure, and I'm more circumspect than I used to be, but I think I'm only less hotheaded now, not more reactionary. Possibly in some ways I've become more liberal, as I've become wiser and more compassionate and less self-centered over the years.
My father wasn't even ten years older than I am now when he made that pronouncement to me. Really, don't you think that if my conversion had been going to happen at all, it would surely have started happening by now? I think my father was wrong, and I won't insult him by ranting about yellow-dog democrats and lame-ass frat boys too busy drinking to know their own minds, much though I'm tempted to do so tonight, all soured as I am by insanely listening to five minutes of GWB before turning the television off.
Instead, I'm just wondering: what about you? Have you become more conservative as the years have gone by? More liberal? Have you changed in political essentials at all, as you've left your college years behind?
I won't even start talking about how quickly he can make the bile rise in my throat (it's practically a Pavlovian response by now, I would think), or how his shell-game politics leave me feeling as though my intelligence has been insulted almost beyond bearing every time he opens his goddamned mouth and at the same time questioning the intelligence of all the people who lap up every word he says the way my dog licks up cat puke if he gets to it before I can. How it's taken years of... Nope, not going to talk about it any more.
Instead, I'm going to talk about a conversation I had with my father when I was in college. I was being probably unbearable and sanctimoniously liberal about something or other, and he informed me that he'd been a liberal once too, but that time and a family and a mortgage had changed his mind. That I would change my mind, too, once I entered the real world and had adult responsibilities to face.
And tonight it's nearly twenty years down the road, and undoubtedly my father would claim that I'm maintaining an unhealthy grip on my Neverlandish talent for avoidance and idealization. But the rest of the world thinks I'm toeing the line pretty well, I thank you. I have adult responsibilities now. No marriage, nor is there likely to be one, but I have a house and a car. Pets. I pay my bills on time, all of them. I'm middle-class! I go to work and pay my taxes and contribute to my 401(k) account! Hey, I even know how to punctuate 401(k)!
But I'm still a liberal. I don't think my affiliations are going to change, either. I don't feel as though I'm closing myself off from the beliefs I once held. They've become tempered by practicality, sure, and I'm more circumspect than I used to be, but I think I'm only less hotheaded now, not more reactionary. Possibly in some ways I've become more liberal, as I've become wiser and more compassionate and less self-centered over the years.
My father wasn't even ten years older than I am now when he made that pronouncement to me. Really, don't you think that if my conversion had been going to happen at all, it would surely have started happening by now? I think my father was wrong, and I won't insult him by ranting about yellow-dog democrats and lame-ass frat boys too busy drinking to know their own minds, much though I'm tempted to do so tonight, all soured as I am by insanely listening to five minutes of GWB before turning the television off.
Instead, I'm just wondering: what about you? Have you become more conservative as the years have gone by? More liberal? Have you changed in political essentials at all, as you've left your college years behind?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-24 06:12 pm (UTC)http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
/ac_grayling/2006/10/acgrayling.htm